EXPERIMENTS IN DRAINING. 285 



one foot before the other in the ditch, plies the 

 shovel, bearing the forward hand upon the forward 

 knee as a fulcrum, operates with comparative ease 

 and advantage. The first drains which I constructed, 

 in the spring of 1849, consisted of about two hun- 

 dred and fifty rods, which were dug 2i feet deep, 

 and one foot wide at the bottom, and filled with 

 stones within a foot of the surface, first laying the 

 bottom stones so as to form a throat or channel for 

 the passage of the water ; these were then covered 

 with straw and the ditch covered with earth. 



This kind of drain drains the land well and 

 quickly, except that I find it somewhat liable to 

 clog or stop up, either from the wash of earth by 

 the water or from the digging of rats, meadow moles 

 or mice ; this I regard as a very serious objection 

 to stone drains, as it is a difficult thing to find the 

 precise locality of such obstructions or remove them, 

 as a little experience will convince any one. In 

 the fall of 1849 I procured of two-inch horse-shoe 

 tile sufficient to lay about 230 rods, which were laid 

 on a side hill, the principal drains passing down the 

 hill in an oblique or angling direction, entering a 

 cross- drain, so that they all terminated at one outlet. 

 These have operated well and drained the land 



effectually, (having been laid at about 50 feet apart,) 

 13 



